CO M M U NI T Y AR C HI VES:
Assimilation, Integration, or Resistance? In her latest book, Urgent Archives: Enacting Liberatory Memory Work, (Routledge Press, 2021) Michelle Caswell, an associate professor in archival studies at UCLA, explores how archivists can inform and disrupt the “white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy” narrative that typically characterizes and compartmentalizes minoritized communities in standard liberal archival solutions. In an excerpt, she recounts the accidental discovery of a set of home movies that begins in 1959, depicting the marriage of a mixed-race South Asian American couple. It chronicles a compelling glimpse over many years, into the lives of this American family and how it has provided a better understanding and context of cultural appropriation and conformity all while trying to preserve personal heritage in an America during a time of deep, profound societal change.
T
he footage is so achingly beautiful you could cry. In full vivid color, a handsome young Indian man smiles at his bride, a young white woman in a gold and red sari that matches his turban. They steal glances while a judge performs the wedding ceremony, they flirtatiously feed each other cake, they laugh while opening gifts. Not only are they beautiful, they are clearly hopelessly in love. The home movie is silent, but if we listen closely, we can almost hear their laughter. This film’s beauty belies the racist context of the society in which it was created. Filmed in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1959, the wedding of Sharanjit Singh Dhillonn and Dorothy Dhillonn would be illegal for another eight years, when the 1967 Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision legalized consensual interracial marriage in the U.S.
36 UCLA Ed&IS SUMMER 2021
